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Format-Free Submissions in Psychology-Related Journals

Author

Listed:
  • Geoff G. Cole

    (Centre for Brain Science, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK)

  • Ellie Benfield

    (Centre for Brain Science, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK)

  • Steven Samuel

    (Department of Psychology, City St. George’s, University of London, London EC1V 0HB, UK)

Abstract

Scientists have a duty to spend their time, and hence public money, in an efficient manner. One particularly wasteful task concerns the formatting of articles submitted to academic journals. Around a decade or so ago some academics began to challenge this inefficiency and a small number of articles have been published advocating for change. There has, however, been little progress, particularly within psychology. In the present article, we advocate for what is sometimes referred to as the Format-Free Submission . In order to quantify progression, we also examined a sample (n = 500) of psychology-related journals to determine which offer this. Results showed that only 73 (i.e., 14.6%) have formatting requirements that are relatively flexible for initial submissions. We suggest that the current system within psychology publishing is unethical, in that it wastes a huge amount of taxpayers’ money, and that change is needed.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoff G. Cole & Ellie Benfield & Steven Samuel, 2024. "Format-Free Submissions in Psychology-Related Journals," Publications, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-6, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jpubli:v:12:y:2024:i:3:p:29-:d:1481456
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Quanmin Guo, 2016. "Journals, agree on manuscript format," Nature, Nature, vol. 540(7634), pages 525-525, December.
    2. Hans Oh, 2020. "A Call for a More Efficient Submission Process," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-3, July.
    3. Julian Budd, 2017. "Reformatting wastes public funds," Nature, Nature, vol. 543(7643), pages 40-40, March.
    4. Yan Jiang & Robert Lerrigo & Anika Ullah & Muthu Alagappan & Steven M Asch & Steven N Goodman & Sidhartha R Sinha, 2019. "The high resource impact of reformatting requirements for scientific papers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-13, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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